Strays – Review
93 Minutes, Rated R*
Written by Dan Perrault
Directed by Josh Greenbaum
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
An abandoned dog teams up with other strays to get revenge on his former owner.
Producers Lord & Miller have a pretty good track record, don’t they? The Lego Movie, Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs The Machines, heck even Cocaine Bear was pretty entertaining.
So when their name is on something, you can be pretty confident going in that it’s going to be something good, even if they’re only producers, right?
Right?!
Hold that thought.
In 1993, The Walt Disney Company helped produce (through Buena Vista Pictures) a wonderful animal film about a group of pets accidentally separated from their owners who made a valiant trip through the wild to get home to them. It was called Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.
And it was awesome.
We learned about friendship, loyalty, and we learned that Don Ameche, Sally Field, and Michael J. Fox made an impressive voice cast.
You laughed; you cried; if you had any semblance of a soul and ever had a pet you loved, then you loved that film.
But hey, it’s 2023, so let’s take that premise and bastardize it all to hell.
Director Josh Greenbaum, perhaps best known for 2021’s Barb and Star Go To Vista del Mar (which is actually entertaining), directs this god-awful dreck for a full 93 minutes.
Sorry; that started a bit rough, didn’t it?
Let’s back up.
No. Let’s not.
Strays is simply one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.
And I watched a film called Clownado, my friends.
The “hero” of this film, Reggie, is an actual, for-real abused dog who is repeated neglected, starved, and finally driven three hours away from his “home” (if you can call it that) and abandoned in the city to, presumably, DIE by his owner, Doug.
Awesome.
Luckily for Reggie, he meets Bug, a yappy little dog, who teaches Reggie how to survive on the streets and introduces him to fellow (not-homeless) dogs Hunter and Maggie.
Reggie convinces the three of them to help him find his way home to Doug, who he is convinced loves him.
Once the three of them learn the depths of Doug’s abuse, they convince Reggie that the relationship is Toxic and to stay with them, where he can be sort-of safe.
Instead, Reggie decides he’s still going to find his way home, not to reunite with Doug, but rather to destroy Doug’s favorite toy: his Penis.
Yep; Reggie plans to bite his dick off.
You cannot make this shit up, folks. Although apparently you can, and get paid for it, because someone over at Unviersal (who’ve been having a pretty good run, overall, of late) green-lit this steaming pile of dog-shit.
Speaking of dog shit, that’s a “plot point.”
I shit you not.
The humor is so cheap it’s practically Expired penny candy; worse, it’s painfully unfunny. Painfully.
All. The. Way. Through.
Sure, they try to dress the film up a couple times to seem like it wants to say something –ANYTHING — profound, but it’s like putting lipstick on a pig that you’re still just going to kill, cook, and eat.
Which they do (metaphorically).
Oh, and speaking of killing… Nope. I won’t spoil THAT little nugget of “humor” for you.
Or the entire “comedic” sequence centered on Hunter’s penis getting super erect enough to reach out of a cage and grab keys off a hook.
Honestly, the only way that becomes LESS funny is if it had worked.
Lord (& Miller), I hate to HATE movies, but sometimes one is just served up so blatantly that you just have to say, Enough.
Enough.
Strays wanders into theaters Friday, August 18 and stars Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Brett Gelman and Will Forte, Josh Gad, Harvey Guillén, Rob Riggle, Jamie Demetriou and Sofia Vergara.
*Strays is rated R for lots of cursing, lots of dogs humping things, and I hope that people dumb enough to take their little kids to “Will Ferrell’s dog movie” have a lot of explaining to do when they get home.
**Spoiler:
Reggie does, in fact, bite Doug’s dick off.**
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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